A long-time fan of ToA, Angelina has followed its development since the Shadowpool days. Her non-gaming hobbies include crochet, gardening, and reading real books (as opposed to digital ones, which lack the proper scent for the full sensory experience). She has been married to her husband, a fellow gamer, since 2002.

Angelina enjoys a variety of games, including Pen & Paper RPGs, RTS, MOBA, guitar simulators, farm simulations, puzzle games, and SNES-style RPGs. She has played a variety of MMORPGs since 1999, starting with Ultima Online. Her all -time favorite (prior to ToA) is Dark Age of Camelot, which she played from launch for nearly five years. Angelina prefers to take on the role of healer for the group, though she isn’t afraid to dive into the middle of things when she thinks it is necessary.

At 17, Don graduated high school early and joined the Navy. His original plans of SEAL training were washed out when it was discovered he was partially colorblind. As an alternative, Don volunteered for submarine service where he served as part of the navigation team and also certified as a SAR (search and rescue) Swimmer.

After leaving the Navy, Don eventually found a new passion in web development. Being completely self-taught, he has remained gainfully employed in the industry for nearly fifteen years.

At Forged Chaos, Don wears many hats but his primary focus is on the design and vision of ToA.

Cassie has had a love for fantasy and writing since she was small. When ToA came into fruition it was no surprise that she took to it immediately. Unfortunately, at the time she was not going to be of any use and was more prone to bring shooed out of the meeting room than being asked for her help.

Time passed and the time for her to actually help finally came. Nervous to put her work up but eager to assist, Cassie put out the first few stories for the lore page. These days Cassie enjoys long nights in the dark with nothing but her computer screen for light, snarking at the bosses, and sleeping for near inhuman amounts of time.

Gordon comes from a diverse background, starting out his career as a drafter for a major US aircraft manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest. His interests quickly turned to computing support as the number of workstations quickly grew and the age of technology began to grow into the aerospace industry.

Gordon has always been interested in table top gaming and was intrigued by the introduction of MMOs.  Deciding to join forces with Brax and Varl in designing a MMO they wanted to play, the groundwork for Trials of Ascension was born.

Gordon serves in several roles at FC, including Designer, Customer Service, Finance, and Operations.  Right now he serves mainly as a project manager/director for the team and tries to keep things on schedule.

Julius has worked in marketing and social media management for more than eight years. He has worked with clients across various industries including consumer product, retail, entertainment, health and fitness, and more.

He enjoys a range of hobbies and interests which include reading sci-fi and fantasy novels, strength and conditioning training, writing short stories, martial arts instruction and practice, and playing table-top RPG’s.

When Forged Chaos offered an opportunity to join the team as a social media ninja he was among the first to answer the call and has been combining his love of gaming and professional experience to promote Trials of Ascension ever since.

In game-years, John is ancient. His first console was a system that let you play Pong on the TV. The next system was a Radio Shack Color Computer. He was in the 8th grade and it came with a book on how to program using BASIC. He was consumed. He could make the computer do stuff, and not just any old stuff, but His stuff. He has been programming ever since.

After 2 months of Pre-Med in college, John switched to Electrical Engineering and then to Computer Engineering. At the time, schools were still trying to figure out what Computer Science really was. Later he would get his master’s degree in Computer Science.

John’s career has been varied. He has worked with libraries, theater light devices, image retrieval, distribution center management, insurance applications, Air Force mission briefing, and missile defense. Each project has something new to learn. His next venture is creating back-end systems for Trials of Ascension which he has been doing for the last year.

Rugnar started playing computer games back when they were MUDs. He ran his own server for Neverwinter Nights and still plays games with some friends from then. He has also played numerous MMOs. His current favorite games are survival genre. He started learning computer modeling a few years ago after using AutoCAD on a project with his family, and has been hooked ever since.

Jesse is very passionate about game development. He has been programming for 10 years, and doing it professionally for 2 and a half. He believes that game development is one of the most rewarding forms of programming. He gets an amazing feeling of accomplishment when he sees his work come to life in a game. He looks forward to doing amazing things with Exile!

Our mystery artist is a traditionally trained artist who has a deep understanding of 3D modeling for video games. He loves all aspects of game design from concept creation, and world editing, to environmental and character modeling and animation. He is excited to be a part of the Forged Chaos team and is excited to help bring it to life.

Josh is a freelance artist helping with ToA. He claims no big claim to fame, no big titles, never worked for Blizzard, or Blur Studio (he wishes!).

Josh graduated with a BA in Studio Arts, went on to get his second degree, Associate of Applied Sciences, in Computer Animation & Computer Science. He started his 3D career in 1999 working for Lasertainment creating 3D laser animations. He has taught workshops & demo’d software such as 3ds Max, Vray, Phoenix FD, and CAT. He also worked for a couple of different medical animation studios in Minneapolis (creating animations for Boston Scientific and Medtronic).

Josh did some tv commercial work for Comcast, helped with Project Wish, worked on Battletech the Movie, and has had his little goblin hands in just about every gaming engine out there.

He found Shadowpool back in the day, when a friend from school worked for them and told him about ToA. He loves and still has a mad crush on the community to this day. Plus, this is where he can release his inner goblin and shake his green fist in fun, while liking every post on the forums!

At a very young age Jason became interested in gaming. He enjoys single player and multiplayer games with friends and family alike. As he grew up his hobbies began to expand, and now partakes in activities such as; Martial Arts, archery, hiking, fishing, and shooting.

Jason’s personality is that of one who is a planner and very determined. Jason graduated from Coleman University at 21, he married his wife Rachel at 24, and at 28 they had their miracle baby girl; Everly, who was born at 29 weeks. After 8 weeks in the NICU, Everly is now one and doing great! Jason is willing to help anyone who asks and figure out any problem that arises.

Levi was one of the original members brought on to work on ToA in the early years. Working first on adding color to the other concept artist’s work and thus gaining the long standing nickname with the ToA guys as “Crayon Boy”.  Levi eventually moved on to doing more of his own concept work for the game, Icon and user interface artwork.

Outside of working on ToA Levi enjoys playing golf, fishing, drawing his own ideas and designs, watching movies, attempting to read books, playing games and following his favorite football teams the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Longhorns.  HOOK’EM! How Bout Them Cowboys!

Favorite Games: Final Fantasy VI, Gemfire, Tecmo Super Bowl III, RBI Baseball, Zelda Link To The Past, Zelda games in general, Team Fortress 2, King Arthurs World, and hands down the best NHL hockey game NHL HITZ PRO. Levi is a huge fan of Nintendo and their willingness to try and think outside the box when it comes to gaming and how you play and control games.

One of three original founders for Trials of Ascension, Barry’s life has centered around the construction industry for the majority of his life, but recently has switched professions into electronics manufacturing. His non-gaming activities include mountain biking, fishing, reading fantasy and science fiction novels and enjoying weekly favorite television shows such as The Walking Dead and Defiance.

His other gaming activities have included an extensive AD&D campaign which lasted for a decade or more, some MMO play (UO!), some board games and miniature collecting and painting. His primary motivation for helping to create and start up Shadowpool Studios, and now Forged Chaos LLC, is for the opportunities for GM immersion and direct interactions with players in an MMO, something he’s experienced within Ultima Online. It is his lifelong desire to bring that kind of interactivity to TOA and to direct real time content and immersion within Exile and ToA.

David has always had great interest in gaming.  Board games, table-top RPGs, console and computer games; if he hasn’t played it he’s probably at least heard of it.  This near obsession all started with reading and the worlds that were opened through using his imagination.  Some of his favorite authors include Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony and the late Douglas Adams, Robert Jordan and J.R.R. Tolkien.

One might think that with such interests that getting into the gaming industry would be logical.  Life never works out the way you want it to though so David attempted a career in law enforcement first.  Disappointed with the opportunities available in this field (and everyone telling him he’ll shoot his eye out), he instead went back to school for a degree in Computer Science while raising a family and working in the field of assisted living care.  David’s first job as a programmer began back in the year 2000 (just missed Y2K) and he has been doing it ever since.

With the opportunity to work on Trails of Ascension: Exile, David can now realize his dream and actually contribute to a project that draws on his passion for gaming.  He looks forward to many adventures on the roads ahead.

Kevin is a long-time gamer, having started with board games—especially strategy games. His first encounter with computer games was on a Commodore 64 and he even wrote a game or two. In college he played AD&D v1.0 and still managed to get a degree in mathematics and computer science.

He got into the Ultima Online beta but never played, opting instead to play strategy games such as the Master of Orion and Master of Magic series. He later worked on the Age of Wonders I & II fan website for Heaven Games. Though he played Horizons, Lineage II, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and World of Warcraft, he found ToA to be more to his liking.

He has followed ToA almost from when it first appeared on the web, and even made a now defunct fan site for it. He currently plays Archeage, Skyrim, and Quake 3 Pain Keep. While not gaming or programming, he keeps busy with homeschooling and three cats (down from six).